Exod. xxxiv. 23, 24. Thrice in the year shall all your men- children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders : neither shall any man desire thy land, ivhen thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God, thrice in the year.
BESIDES the weight of evidence arising from the accomplishment of prophecy, and the working of
miracles, to prove the divine origin of the Mosaic dispensation, there is a great abundance of internal evidence in the dispensation itself, that corroborates and confirms our conclusions respecting it. What impostor that ever lived would have been weak enough to put his religion to such a test as this which we have now read? No one would have done it even for a few years, whilst he himself might be at hand to execute his own plans ; much less would any man transmit such an ordinance to posterity, when one single instance of failure would be sufficient to sub- vert his whole religion. But, not to dwell on this, we will, I. Draw your attention to the institution itself —
It was, that all the males should go up to Jerusa- lem thrice in the year, from every quarter of the land, to keep a feast there unto the Lord. Now consider,
1. Of what nature this appointment was —
[It was partly political, and partly religious. As a political ordinance, it was intended to cement the people together, and to keep them united in love. Had they had no common centre of union, no appointed means of communion, the different tribes might in process of time have forgotten their relation to each other, and have sought their own separate interests, instead of acting in concert with each other for the good of the whole. But by this expedient, all who had the greatest influence among them were brought frequently into the closest fellowship with each other, and, on their return to their respective homes, diffused the same brotherly affection through the land. As a religious ordinance, it was of singular importance, not only for the preserving of the people from idolatry, (to which they were always prone,) but for the impressing of their minds with a love to vital godliness. The times appointed for their assem- bling at Jerusalem were at the feast of unleavened bread, to commemorate their deliverance from Egypt and from the sword of the destroying angel ; at the feast of Pentecost, to commemorate no less a mercy, the giving of the law ; and at the feast of tabernacles, or of in-gathering (as it was called), to commemorate their living in tents in the wilderness, and to render thanks for the fruits of the earth which they had gathered in a. Thus at the returning seasons of spring, of
a See Deut. xvi. 1 — 16.